In the Woods
by merielrose
Summary: BREAKING DAWN SPOILERS. Jacob thinks about life and love and the messes he gets into. She's not helping him much, either. Upped rating for language. Le sigh. It's not my fault that Jake swears like a sailor!
1. In the Woods

Authoer's Note: **BREAKING DAWN SPOILERS BREAKING DAWN SPOILERS BREAKING DAWN SPOILERS BREAKING DAWN SPOILERS.**

Got it? Okay...

Yada, yada... Stephenie Meyer PWNS... you know...

Dedicated to my** Amanda**, who I promised this to. She's kind of a big deal.

* * *

It couldn't have happened overnight, though it could be said that it had been there all along. Jake kicked himself for letting such a perverse thought into his mind. And then he thanked whatever was up there that Edward was no where nearby.

It was Nessie's idea for a hunting trip. Hunting wild elk had actually become desirable to both parties, even more appealing than the juicy burgers they abandoned at Sue Clearwater's summer picnic at La Push. Perhaps it was more the chase and not the goal.

But food isn't perverse. It was the thought that came to Jacob's head as he looked over at Renesmee's form during the hunt. The thought that made him lose his footing for a single split second. The thought that sent him careening into a great big tree and slowly phasing back to his human form…

--

Not too long ago, Nessie and Jacob had visited Claire and Quil on the reservation. Nessie was less than a year old, but still toddling about. Jake decided a playmate at the beach would be an awfully fun adventure. The simple, conspiratorial decision with his little imp was too right for words. He had been in his wolf form most of the day when he heard Quil and Claire's laughter. Nessie was with him, and with a touch of her hand, asked what he was listening to so intently.

Gently with his teeth, like a mother cat tosses a kitten, he threw her onto his great back and they sped toward the coast. Nessie giggled through the ride, and showed Jake what she enjoyed most seeing – birds in the trees, a family of squirrels, things he'd seen but not seen, and she was adamant that he enjoyed as much as she had.

He set her down in a small glade, and then retreated back into the trees to phase and dress. Nessie was humming a Quileute song he had taught her, patiently waiting for him to emerge.

"Nice song," he commented.

"It kind of fit," she smiled in reply, then wondered, "will _they_ get mad at me?"

"C'mon, kid," he held out his hand to her, "you're okay."

She grabbed it and said in her way, _I'm not a kid, dummy._

He laughed, "Right. Well, you're going to meet a kid. My friend Quil is here with his… with Claire."

Renesmee nodded with her impossible understanding, and Jake shook his head. There was an unspoken moment of memory, the moment when steel cables bound them together for eternity, but it was too faint to be anything more than a flashing thought. The two could hear the squawks and giggles making music with the crashing waves on the shore.

"Hello, Claire," Nessie greeted a girl who looked a little younger than her, physically, though much younger in another sense. "May I play with you?"

The black haired, dark eyed young girl looked at the other in surprise. "Quil, who's that?"

"I'm Nessie!" she gave a dimpled smile.

"I'm looking for rocks," Claire struggled with her pronunciation of the letter R.

"I'll help!" and they skipped off, leaving their two guardians in the dust behind them.

"So," Quil shoved his hands in his pockets and stood by his friend, "you fell for a baby, too."

"Yeah," Jake scoffed, "weird, isn't it?"

"A little, but really, I don't want anything other than to see her smile. It's all good just like that. If there's more to this, then it's gotta be worth waiting for, you know?" Quil observed.

Jake watched his red-haired universe flirt with the waves of the ocean and wondered what more there could be. She turned to him, and her brown eyes sparkled.

--

The memory was not too long ago, but the problem was now. Jake was nearly completely phased, and nearly completely, well…

"Jake?" Renesmee called from around the trees.

He swore loudly. Small problem. "Hold on a sec, Ness. I'm kinda in a tangle," he called back to her. He at yanked his shorts from their place on his ankle. Then he realized this might not be the greatest idea.

"Need help?" Nessie poked her head from the nearby underbrush. "Oh," she blushed.

Jake phased back into the wolf, which seemed an easier solution to attempting to dress. But even as a wolf, he was embarrassed. When did that happen?

He'd watched her grow. She was five years old now, but looked more than fifteen. A dazzling young girl, just blossoming in all the right places. Was he supposed to have noticed this?

He wrenched himself onto his paws, grumbling at himself. Nessie giggled nervously, "Did you lose your appetite?"

_Not in the least_, he thought, and then shrank away from its double meaning. He barked at her, signaling his readiness to hunt.

Renesmee walked up to him cautiously. If a lump could rise in his mangy throat, it did. Her eyes, those eyes he thought he loved in Bella's face, the eyes he loved before he knew her, because he was always hers, not her mother's, Renesmee.

She put her hand to his muzzle, the scent that once bothered him, so sickly sweet when undiluted, in her was mixed with natural humanity. It was delicious to him.

Then she closed her eyes and kissed his nose. "Tag, you're it!" She disappeared into the woods.

_Dammit, Renesmee, you'll be the death of me._


	2. Dammit

**Author's Note:** I couldn't resist playing with the story a little more...

* * *

_Dammit, Renemsmee, you'll be the death of me._

It was too ridiculous and romantic a thought for him, but he knew he followed her smile and the scent of her hair through the forest.

"C'mon, Jake," she sighed in the wind, "you can't catch me!"

He growled. _I'm hungry, I wanted a burger. You're making me chase you through a forest and we're not even going to get lame food. Worst date ever._

He heard a giggle to his left and pounced. Nessie squealed in surprise and delight when he pinned her to the forest floor.

_You found me_, she said, touching his nose.

He touched her forehead with the tip of his tongue. _You're ridiculous_, he said in his mind, though she couldn't hear him. She squirmed beneath him, and he looked at her in puzzlement. _What?_

"Don't kiss me that way," she scolded. She put her hand to his muzzle again and gave him what she saw in her head. He was phasing back into a man, kissing her on the mouth. _Please_.

_Your dad will kill me_, he hung his great hairy head. She didn't know what he was saying, but she knew it meant no.

_Please!_ she insisted, furrowing her white as porcelain brow. Her thoughts were as muddled as his as she shot picture after picture into his mind, pictures he would never have let himself dare even dream anywhere near the Cullen coven. How long had she been thinking like this?!

"Surprised?" she smirked.

_A bit_, he admitted, making his thoughts as obvious as possible on his wolfish face. He leaned toward her, drinking in her scent, her heat, then loped off behind a tree. _Damn, damn, damn._

"Jake!" she shouted in frustration, clawing at the undergrowth beneath her. Despite her own self-made heat, the air was suddenly too cold for her liking. She knew he was in his human form by now, "Where'd you go, Jacob?"

"I'm right here." He dared put his arms around her waist as he walked up from behind her.

She whipped around and put her mouth to his, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his torso. He gave in for one blissful moment. He was hers.


	3. Growing Pains

**Author's Note:** And I just had to know how Edward would react...

I don't think I'll write much more. I'm just writing for my own amusement. I'm trying to kill the plot bunnies.

* * *

_He gave in for one blissful moment. He was hers._

"Hello, Daddy!" Renesmee beamed when she arrived home. She kissed her father on the cheek. He didn't look old enough to be her father. Her older brother perhaps, with their matching hair and skin. Edward Cullen, seventeen forever.

"What's so exciting today, Ness?" Edward laughed, putting the book he was reading down. He loved his daughter's smile.

"Oh, nothing much. What language is that?" she guarded her thoughts. "Where's Alice?"

"Upstairs, and Spanish, which you should know by now," said her father, growing suspicious. "Where's Jacob?"

"New languages? I'm only five years old! Outside with Mom. Dad, can I borrow the car tomorrow?"

Edward felt annoyingly much like Charlie had when Bella had lived with her human father. "Remind me to make sure you're enrolled in driving school sometime soon."

"Aw, c'mon! Rosalie's a supremely better teacher!" she said.

"I'll think about it, _querida_," her father sighed, "Go frolic or something."

"Thanks, Daddy," she kissed his cheek. In that minute connection, she let her guard down. The one electric shock set his spine rigid as she pranced of the room. He saw everything, the chase, the woods, the kisses…

"Bella!!" he growled.


End file.
